This weblog was created to act as a platform for the voice of secular pro-democracy activists in and outside Iran who are struggling against the religious dictatorship of the Islamic clerics in Iran.
My favourite quote:
"Evil only prevails when the good stay silent"

Saturday, August 27, 2011

The Orumiyeh lake is Iran's second biggest lake, between East Azerbaijan and West Azerbaijan. It is the largest lake in the Middle East, and the third largest salt water lake on earth, with a surface area of approximately 5,200 km², but it is drying up as a direct result of government policies. Irregular dam projects, uncontrolled digging of underground wells and building a motorway bridge which has drained parts of the lake has caused 60% of the lake, so far, to dry up and it could disappear entirely, turning it into a salt marsh which will directly effect the climate of the region.

Any protests against these government policies, like any other protests in Iran, have been severely dealt with. In April, last year, Special Units were deployed by the regime to beat up peaceful protesters.
The Iranian parliament, the Majlis, recently rejected an emergency bill to save the lake and the Friday Prayer leader of Orumiyeh, the notorious Mullah Hassani who shopped his own Marxists son that led to his son's execution, called the protests illegal and against the national interests!

Despite all this, the people of Orumiyeh came out in their thousands today and chanted "The lake is on its last breaths and the Majlis issues its death sentence"

The very regime which supported the UK riots and condemned UK police brutality against the rioters responded to the protests by firing plastic bullets and mobilising more troops to Orumiyeh. At the same time there are reports of protests spreading to Tabriz, with clashes reported at Marlan and Taleghani districts of Tabriz.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Western press have been keen on covering the assassination of Iranian physicists, publishing the trickle of information that have been released to them by Iran's regime. As I have said in a previous post, the story that these Iranian physicists have something to do with Iran's nuclear project and have therefore been assassinated by Israeli Mossad agents, seems to suit all involved.

It is easy however to forget that apart from Iranian physicists, there have also been medical doctors who have been assassinated since the election protests began in 2009. The assassination methods are remarkably similar too. i.e. assassins on motorbikes committing the murders and then leaving the scene. Somehow the Western press do not find the stories of assassinated medical doctors as interesting as that of physicists. The assassination of medical doctors just can't be connected to Iran's nuclear project and the more exciting spy stories.

One of these medical doctors who was assassinated 11 months ago, was Dr. Abdulreza Soudbakhsh. He was also a Tehran university lecturer and the head of the Infections Unit at Imam Khomeini hospital.

Today, 11 months since Dr. Soudbakhsh was murdered, his son, Behrang spoke out. Many of Dr.Soudbakhsh's patients were victims of Kahrizak detention centre, where unspeakable crimes, including rape, were carried out against some of those who had been detained in the post-election protests. Behrang told an Iranian news website that the authorities had asked his father to say his patients were killed as a result of a meningitis outbreak and if he did not comply he would be eliminated.

Eleven months after Dr. Soudbakhsh was murdered, his son says the authorities have shown no interest in identifying the killers. Behrang also described how the two assassin motorcyclists were roaming around on their bikes for half an hour without even wearing a crash helmet, outside his father's clinic. An unidentified taxi had closed the road access for 10 minutes and the authorities have made no effort to identify the taxi, only saying the CCTV cameras were not working in the area for the duration of the assassination. A pharmacy opposite did have CCTV cameras and the authorities took the films away without ever mentioning the tapes again. The assassins were also using silencers, the mere possession of which carries a heavy jail sentence in Iran.

The authorities at the time also denied any connection between Dr. Soudbakhsh and the Kahrizak patients, but Behrang says all the files are available and prove this was the case. He also told the Iranian news site, how his father was extremely perturbed and talked about the many Kahrizak victims, who were his patients. Behrang recalls his father saying "how can they be so callous? to have raped an 18 year old boy to the extent that he was killed after the rape ordeal"

Behrang also added that his father was due to travel outside Iran, three days after he was assassinated, and the authorities may have feared that he would have spilled the beans about Kahrizak more freely to the media.

Hojat-ol-Islam Sheikh Hossein Ansarian is an expert orator. In fact most Shiite clerics are, unlike most Iranian opposition figures who have not had much training or opportunity in public speaking, it is part of a Shiite cleric's training how to keep the people's attention when they speak to them from the pulpits. Hossein Ansarian can be regarded as one of the best amongst Iran's Shiite clerics in public speaking for the masses.
His highly charged sermons during the three special nights, 19th to 21St of Ramadan, in Shiite calendar from the night Imam Ali was struck by the sword until he died of the injuries three days later, are amongst the busiest sermons throughout the year. Ansarian's sermons are often broadcast from state TV as they were this year.

This year there was a twist to his speech however, Ansarian publicly apologised to the people of Iran for having misled them with slogans and promises that were never delivered.

"We who made up slogans, went on the pulpits and gave statements, we who sent you to the front lines to carry out the revolution, we did not seek power or position and we do not seek it now, but we did not want this present situation either. This was not the revolution we wanted"

As he placed the holy Koran on his head, part of the ceremonies on these nights, he continued saying emotionally: "People, please forgive us, we made promises to you which did not materialise, we didn't want you to be in this dire economic situation, we didn't want to see these soaring prices, the revolution was hijacked by the wrongdoers'

Ansarian's apology which lasted for three minutes ended by telling people, "have no expectation from anyone other than the Hidden Imam who will one day come out of occultation and liberate the world."

Monday, August 22, 2011

There was something different about the Al-Quds march this year. First of all the number of participants were remarkably less than previous years. After waiting for one hour, at the Portland Place, where the marchers gathered for more busloads to arrive, the policeman I spoke to put the best estimate of their numbers at around 300 max.

I also saw no flags of the Islamic Republic and no posters of the Supreme Leader this year. It was as if the organisers were more careful to hide the Iranian connection this time.

As usual there were hardly any Palestinians on the march, the rest were a hardcore of Iranian regime loyalists and Supreme Leader worshippers plus mainly Asian Muslims. There were very few English 'useful idiots' on the march this year, didn't see any Socialist Worker Party members or banners, there was still however at least one 'useful idiot' Leninist who joined the marchers with a red flag which had a hammer and sickle inside a five pointed star waving on the back of his push bike with cpgb written at the bottom of it, Communist Party of Great Britain, I assume. I always have the most contempt for these UK Communists who lend their support to IRI sponsored events. Do they not know how many young Communist sympathisers have been executed by the Islamic Republic? Have they no sympathy with the mothers and fathers who lost, in some cases all of their children who had become Leftist supporters after the 1979 revolution in Iran? Like the Behkish family for example, who had five of their children executed by the regime. It irritates me to no end to see these comfortable champagne Socialists never express an iota of solidarity for their Iranian comrades and yet march with their murderers.

I also saw one woman with peroxide hair, wearing a mini skirt in the march. I felt sorry at her stupidity, does she not know what would happen to her, if she went out in the streets in Iran dressed like that?

Most people we managed to speak to had no idea the march was organised by the Iranian regime and most of the ones who we managed to speak to, decided not to join the march, like these two Irish friends of Palestine who decided to leave after they realised the Al-Quds march was a propaganda march sponsored and organised by the Islamic Republic of Iran

After all who in their right mind that didn't have a hidden agenda could argue with what we were saying? how can the Islamic Republic, which is neither Islamic nor a Republic and nor Iranian, and has brought misery, despotism and poverty for the Iranian people, liberate Palestine or anywhere else?

On the whole it seems the naked brutality of the dictatorships in Syria and in Iran has finally opened some eyes and it has definitely cost these dictatorships a lot of supporters.

Another thing that irritated me, was the two BBC Persian reporters who had popped out of their offices in Portland Place, to see what was going on. They were mingling and chatting with the IRNA reporters and when I asked them why they don't make a report of our counter protest and talk to us, one of them gave a condescending smile, saying there is only a few of you! Well if BBC Persian for once reported the event instead of copy/pasting its mundane news, may be more people would find out about what Al-Quds march is and join us. In any case what difference does it make how many of us there were, the important thing is we were being effective by talking to people and persuading them not to join the march and our message that the Islamic Republic or Bahsar Assad can not bring liberty for Palestinians was worth reporting.

When I came home, the news was all about the Rebels closing in on Gaddafi. It looks like the Libyan dictator is seeing his last days in power after more than four decades of absolute rule. The Al-Quds march this year also seemed to have the same message, dictators in the Middle East are losing support and are on their way out. Good riddance to all of them.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

These two female protesters, hold a copy of the ultra conservative daily, Kayhan, the title reads:
"England's Youth: We Are Standing to the End, We Do Not Want Monarchy"

Video of the rioters, who according to Kayhan Daily, are protesting to reject British monarchy and are "standing to the end", robbing an innocent passer-by motor-cyclist:

Video of Iranian protesters, tending a mounted Special Unit anti-riot troop, who had come off his bike after attacking the peaceful protesters:

As all the evidence suggests Mark Duggan or Starrish Mark, was a drug dealing gangster and a founding member of the North London, Star Gang, perhaps the Baseej supporters are right, they are all Mark Duggans.

Saturday, August 06, 2011

Today is the anniversary of Shapur Bakhtiar’s murder. A great man with guts and foresight was assassinated by the agents of the Islamic Republic and with the collusion of Mitterand's Socialist government in France.

Friday, August 05, 2011

In the last two years, since the fraudulent elections in 2009, four assassinations in Iran, have grabbed the headlines of the world media. Headlines which have been duplicated in a relentless copy/paste exercise and articles which are prime examples of lazy journalism and factual inaccuracies.

Spiegel’s article on the latest round of these assassinations, that of Dariush Rezaee Nejad, is what prompted me to write this blog post. Spiegel concludes that the assassination was the work of Mossad, based on a reported smile by Ehud Barak during the interview and claims made by an unnamed, unknown and un-identifed Israeli 'intelligence source'. Yet a mountain of facts and evidence surrounding these assassinations are completely ignored and unreported.

The first assassination of an Iranian academic where some kind of connection with the nuclear industry was assumed was that of Massoud Ali-Mohammadi or as one of these “accurate” news media outlets refers to: Mohammed Ali Masoudi !!

So lets examine who Ali-Mohammadi was and who would have benefitted most from his assassination. Ali-Mohammadi was in fact a Quantum field theorist and elementary particle physicist. His academic achievements included some 53 research articles and numerous translations of text books like the Modern Quantum Mechanics. He was NOT in any way related to the nuclear weapon or the nuclear power industry, nor was his name on any sanctions list. More importantly, he was an active supporter of the Green Movement. Ali Mohammadi actually actively encouraged and organised his students to take part in the post-‘election’ protests. He was one of the 240 university professors who publicly and openly expressed their support for Mir Hussein Moussavi, one of the main leaders of the Green Movement, now under house arrest with his wife.

Professor Ali Mohammadi was also a council member of International Centre for Synchrotron-Light for Experimental Science Applications in the Middle East (SESAME). A regional experimental physics project which includes Israel as one of its members. It stretches the imagination to assume the Islamic Republic of Iran would include one of its key Nuclear Weapon/Power scientists, who could be a possible target for assassination by Western agencies, on this SESAME project, where he would regularly meet in conferences with colleagues from other countries, including Israel.

The manner of Ali Mohammadi’s assassination also does not suggest a clean professional hit. With the amount of explosives used to blow up his car, it was lucky that no other person close by was killed. His assassination which followed the assassination of Moussavi’s nephew, was a turning point in quashing the Green Movement in Iran.

Earlier this year, the regime paraded Farshid Jamali Fash on state TV, confessing to Ali Mohammadi’s murder and describing how he was trained by the Israelis. The Iranian regime claimed Jamali Fash was part of a 9 member team who were all arrested in connection with Ali-Mohammadi’s assassination. The TV confessions of Jamali Fash were full of contradictions and it later emerged that he was an ardent pro-Ahmadinejad devotee and a kick boxer member of the national team. I managed to talk to one of his former opponents in a tournament in Australia, who confirmed, Jamali Fash seemed to be very pro-regime. No more of those claimed to have been arrested by the Iranian intelligence minister were either named or paraded on TV. Almost 9 months after Jamali Fash’s TV appearance, there is still no news that he has been executed, as one would expect to have been the punishment of a crime of that calibre.

Next were two assassinations on November 29, 2010, which took place on the same day, that of Majid Shahriari and Fereydoon Abbas Davani.

Majid Shahriari, again was a theoretical quantum physicist and not on any sanctions lists, although unlike Ali Mohammadi, he had no interest in politics and supported neither side during the post-election protests, but he too worked alongside other regional scientists on the SESAME project.

He was assassinated by two assailants on a motor bike in broad daylight and in middle of the heavy morning traffic on his way to work. The assailants attached an explosive to his car and drove off. Both assassins got away. Shahriari was killed as the result of the explosion and his wife was injured. Pictures of Shahriari’s car after the explosion show the driver’s side door completely blown off by the explosion.

There was no appeal made by the state for the public to come forward as witnesses and until now no one has been arrested or charged with his murder.

I have come across one eyewitness myself however. A former employee of the interior ministry, who saw the whole thing and told me it bore all the hall marks of an Iranian regime hit squad.

Fereydoon Abbas Davani, the other target for the “assassination” that day, was connected to the Nuclear program however. He is a revolutionary guard member and he is on the sanctions list and indeed he is now the Head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation. Unlike Ali-Mohammadi and Shahriari, it would have been understandable for Western agencies or Mossad to plan his assassination, but he was not even hurt! Immediately after the “assassination” he spoke at a Baseej gathering.

Javanonline, affiliated to Iran’s Revolutionry Guards, quickly gave too much detail about the assassinations and even confidently reported a third explosion had taken place. The news was later denied and the page removed.

Footage of Abbassi Davani’s car shown afterwards, show a few bullet holes on the bonnet and windscreen and unlike Shahriari’s car, his car was not blown up. If these assassinations were the work of highly sophisticated Western/Israeli sent hit squads, how is it that a theoretical research physicist not on the sanctions list is eliminated so efficiently but the more obvious target who is clearly connected to the nuclear program and is on the sanctions list, is not even hurt.

It seems Fereydoon Abbassi Davani’s assassination was a fake and staged attempt to justify the Western/Mossad hit squad story to give it more credence.

Last in this list was the assassination of Dariush Rezaee Nejad in front of his wife and daughter outside their home. The couple had returned after having picked up their daughter from a kindergarden birthday party. The initial reports in the Iranian dailies were detailed reports with pictures of the wrong man, Dariush Rezaee and not Dariush Rezaei Nejad.

Dariush Rezaee is a nuclear physics scientist but he was not even in Iran on that day, instead the man who was killed in front of his family, was an MSc student, studying power electrics at Khajeh Nassir Tousi university. He even had a Facebook page and on his Facebook page, he had included the dissident Iranian singer, Shajarian as one of his favourites. It is unthinkable that an Iranian scientist connected with Iran’s nuclear program would have a facebook page which shared his friends and family and their photos.

Rezaee Nejad also lived at Bani Hashem street, a poor part of Tehran and an unlikely residential area for an elite Iranian scientist connected with the nuclear program who could have been the target of Western agencies.

ِA mistaken identity was the only way the proponent of a Mossad hit squad could explain their James Bond type theories at first but then they resorted to another cock and bull story، that Rezaei Nejad’s research was to do with a trigger mechanism used in nuclear weapons! If all else fails this trigger mechanism always comes to the rescue. Just about anything, product or research can be included under trigger mechanism by these lacklustre Spiegel type journalists who once thought the Hitler diaries were real.

As early as February 2005, I have seen reports of Iran not only having acquired the trigger mechanism
but having successfully tested it too. Six years after having successfully tested the trigger mechanism, it seems all depended on an MSc student to finish his final year project. Media journalists who do not even know how a nuclear weapon trigger works and did not until yesterday even know who Dariush Rezaee Nejad was, suddenly seem to have read his final year project for his MSc certification and concluded that he was a legitimate target for a Mossad hit squad.

One day we may know why these Iranian academics were assassinated but until then, these assassinations seem to be a matter of convenience for all parties. The Iranian regime can assassinate individuals and blame it on Mossad and others. Israelis on the other hand, after their latest operational gaffs, seem to gloat on rumours that suggest their military operations are as awesome as ever and Western media seem happy with being content about lack of detailed reporting and appetite by their readers for James Bond stories.

Meanwhile the dreams of a young couple who had left the small town of Abdanan in the Ilam province for a better life is shattered and a young innocent girl who had been enjoying a birthday party is scarred for the rest of her life after having seen her loving devoted father murdered in front of her eyes.

Wednesday, August 03, 2011

I got up early in the morning to write the previous post on the Islamic Republic's lack of tolerance for a public water pistol fight in a Tehran park. By the time I got home in the evening, the state TV was parading some of the organisers and participants who were confessing to their "crime":

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The head of the Moral Police, Roozbehani : "We have asked the judiciary to deal with these wrong doers as severely as possible. We can not tolerate such public events any where in the country"

Tuesday, August 02, 2011

It is wrong to assume that you will only be arrested in Iran for political dissent or for not observing the state's Islamic dress code, you risk incarceration if you dare to have fun, particularly if its group fun and if it is in public.

The latest arrests in Iran include those who organised and participated in a water pistol fight in a park in Tehran. The fun event was organised on Facebook:

Desperate to have some fun in the Islamic Republic, lots of people took to the idea, young and old, adults and kids:

It seemed too good to be true, after all, its not even the pre-elections period, where the strict rules are slightly relaxed and a feel good factor induces people to turn up at the ballots and vote for the state approved candidates.

Behnam Atabaki, the General Director of the District, was the first official to publicly condemn the event and those who participated in it. Atabaki also criticised the Law Enforcement Forces and said they were unable to break up the "immoral" gathering which went on from 9:00 am to 12:00 noon time. Park authorities only managed to stop the massive water pistol fight, only after they thought about cutting the water supplies.

More condemnations of the "morally abnormal" event followed in the sate controlled media. Isfahan MP, Mohamad Taghi Rahbar, condemned the water pistol fight in the park and said "the officials should not show indifference to those who are endeavouring to dilute our Islamic values." Rahbar, who is also the deputy chief of the parliament's legal and judicial commission, added "we are pursuing more information on those who organised this and will deal with them severely. "

Another similar event in another park on the following Sunday was simply too much to ignore for the authorities. Tehran's chief of police, Commander Hossein Sajedinia said "Police quickly turned up and all those who took part in the event have been arrested" He added that "Police will definitely deal swiftly with those who try to break the social order"

All this is happening at a time, when the crime rate is soaring throughout Iran. Police are unable to deal with numerous knife fights and stabbings which have also included lethal attacks on several Iranian celebrities in recent weeks. Some of the knife attacks have taken place in front of the police which have simply looked on without daring to interfere. There is also an alarming increase in gang rapes of women, like the one which happened during a private birthday party in Khomeini-Shahr, where armed gangs which included members of the local Baseej stormed into the party, locked up the men and raped the women which included a pregnant mother. Police took several hours to turn up for the rescue and the official reaction of the local Friday prayer leader was to put portion of the blame on the women who were raped, because they had "provoked the peeping local youth by dancing in their own property without observing the proper hejab!". Comments which seem to have only provided justification for several other gang rapes reported since. Yet an innocent water pistol fight where the young and old can have fun, no one is hurt and all enjoy themselves, unthinkable and un-Islamic behaviour for the Islamic Republic of Iran!

Monday, August 01, 2011

As the holy month of Ramadan begins, the Al-Shabiha henchmen of Islamic Republic's closest ally, the Socialist Baath Republic of Syria, dump bodies of the dead protesters into the river. International outcry by peaceniks in the West: ZERO!

About Me

Follow Me on Twitter @potkazar
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Last time I was in Iran, was during the Islamic "cultural revolution". I hated what was taking place in front of my eyes.
Illiterate gangs of thugs attacking students and academics and telling them how a university must be run! Book stalls being attacked, with books torn up and burned.
I knew then that I had to do something to get rid of this scourge of clerics who had seized power in Iran.
My main objective in life is to help establish a secular democracy in Iran.
I believe the best way forward for Iran to be based on four pillars of Democracy, Secularism, Nationalism and Meritocracy.
Most countries that have adopted these principles have been prosperous, why shouldn't our people be one of them?